


I Watch Him As He Sleeps

by alittlepieceofgundamwing_archivist



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: M/M, POV Alternating, Romance, Yaoi, post war-ness, unsappy sap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-03
Updated: 2013-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 19:37:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14527704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlepieceofgundamwing_archivist/pseuds/alittlepieceofgundamwing_archivist
Summary: by Crivassan--We'd been lovers on and off through the wars. And when the others all paired off and found themselves in relationships, we'd decided we would give it a try. It had nothing to do with feelings, and everything to do with companionship and normalcy.Normal people had relationships, not stress-relief fuck buddies.We tried it.





	1. (Wufei)

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Dacia, the archivist: this work was originally archived at [A Little Piece of Gundam Wing](https://fanlore.org/wiki/A_Little_Piece_Of_Gundam_Wing), which closed in 2017. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after July 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [a little piece of gundam wing collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/alittlepieceofgundamwing/profile).

I watch him as he sleeps. It's amazing, but he seems more mature when his eyes are closed. It's the manic gaze in the amethyst orbs that makes one think of a child on holiday, instead of a man who calls himself Death. He still does. It's a comfort actually, because now when he says it, you can tell he's just talking. The anger and desperation of Shinigami doesn't fill him anymore. My love does.  
  
And what more can a man ask for than being someone's light? That's what he calls me. His light. I smile, recalling how this not quite perfection became what I like to call life-rather than existence.   
  
We'd been lovers on and off through the wars. And when the others all paired off and found themselves in relationships, we'd decided we would give it a try. It had nothing to do with feelings, and everything to do with companionship and normalcy.   
  
Normal people had relationships, not stress-relief fuck buddies.   
  
We tried it.   
  
It was rather more different than I thought it would be. Not for the reasons one would think though.   
  
The fact that we were no longer trying to prove our strengths against one another made our similarities all to clear to both of us. For the first time, we were truly seeing each other. And what we saw changed us. For the better, we agree, but still. It was the little habits that manifested themselves in peacetime that made me really take note of who he was.  
  
It's difficult to imagine, but Duo Maxwell is one of the most painstakingly organized people I have ever met. Almost every cabinet in our house has a small, printed label. If ever someone were stupid enough to break in, they wouldn't have a hard time finding what they wanted. That was when I told him we were changing the labeling system to Chinese. He agreed immediately to my logic.   
  
When he can't sleep he watches b-rated horror films on our television. The noises from which never fail to wake me.   
  
When he's upset, he distracts himself.   
  
When he's happy, he has a craving for oranges, hot showers, and romance novels.  
  
And sometimes, randomly, he'll email me at work and describe to me in detail all the things he plans on doing to me when I get home.   
  
And we fell in love so slowly it was like falling asleep on a winter morning.   
  
I watch him as he sleeps, and press a gentle kiss to his forehead before slipping down next to him and easing into my own slumber.


	2. (Duo)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by Crivassan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note from Dacia, the archivist: this work was originally archived at [A Little Piece of Gundam Wing](https://fanlore.org/wiki/A_Little_Piece_Of_Gundam_Wing), which closed in 2017. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after July 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [a little piece of gundam wing collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/alittlepieceofgundamwing/profile).

I watch him as he sleeps, brushing a lock of raven silk from his cheek and watching him smile gently in reaction. Even in sleep, he knows how to make me melt. Simplicity is the name of the game to win my heart, and he has it down to an art. I laugh. I'm a poet when I think about him, and I'm awfully sappy about us, but, surprisingly, he doesn't care.  
  
During the wars, when I'd tried flirting or being open about our sometimes-sexual relationship, he'd closed off and snorted. It didn't hurt me then, but it did piss me off. We were friends, and lovers, and yet he wouldn't let me hold his hand or kiss him in public, even when Tro and Q-bean were practically making out across the dining room table. I realize now that he never does things he doesn't mean. While I refuse to lie in words, he refuses to lie in action. And he didn't want to act like we were in love when he knew that we weren't.   
  
And we weren't. Not then. We couldn't be. There were too many walls and barriers between us at that point, each of us putting so much into maintaining our masks, we never would have had enough to give each other. The ending of the wars changed that.  
  
When we decided to move in together at the end of the second eve war, it had absolutely nothing to do with falling in love or wanting 'something more'. I don't think either of us were thinking anything along those lines.   
  
Neither of us was really ever very romantic. We don't take long walks in the park or promise each other the moon and the stars. And while people think that I'm psychotic and melodramatic, when it comes to things that actually matter to me, I think all the false mush sort of defeats the purpose.   
  
So we began our foray into 'being together' as housemates and fuck-buddies, maintaining the roles we'd played through the war. And after a couple months of peace, we started letting our masks go. It was a conscious decision for both of us.   
  
The first thing both of us did when that happened... was get glasses. Funny, isn't it? We'd been so caught up in being big, strong Gundam pilots, we'd put those awful little plastic things in our eyes everyday to keep up the image. A lean, mean fighting machine does _not_ have less than perfect anything, including vision.   
  
And after that, we opened our eyes a different way. It became a sort of game, for both of us I think, but I bet Wufei didn't think of it that way. We searched for changes in each other, tried to mark where the old mask was and where the revealed person behind it came through.  
  
Some of the things I saw were things I'd guessed at before. When left to his own devices, Wufei actually does prefer to read quietly somewhere. However, after I'd learned to read Chinese fluently (I'd been pretty good before, but Wufei helped me refine my literacy while we made my new labels), I found that his 'ancient Chinese texts that were not to be touched' were actually Chinese romance novels and fantasy books wrapped in old-looking paper. Don't get me wrong, he _does_ read philosophy and history books a lot, but he's a lot more open-minded than he lets on.   
  
When he's irritated about one thing, he gets edgy about everything.   
  
When he's proud of something he does, he quietly leaves it somewhere for me to find and then humbly hides it away. Then I have to go find it again. He wrote a letter to me in Chinese calligraphy once and actually tried to put it away somewhere out of sight after I'd seen it. I had it framed. It still makes him blush to see it hanging on our wall.  
  
He knows my moods like the back of his hand and he makes a point to spend at least an hour talking to me everyday. It's his way of making sure we stay open with each other, because I know he wants us to last. And I love that.   
  
And like I said, it's all about simplicity with Fei. The letter I mentioned he wrote was probably the most 'romantic' thing he's done. He doesn't bring me flowers and chocolates wrapped in little packages, or send me little notes every day.  
  
He does, however, make sure that there's always a fresh supply of oranges in the fruit basket; that we never run out of chocolate milk; and that the coffee cup I've been gesticulating with for half an hour while we talk is emptied and filled again with _warm_ coffee before I have a chance to drink it.    
  
I watch him as he sleeps. It's the least I can do in these small hours when there's barely an hour before the alarm calls us both back into the outside world again. It's nice to know, though, that we can always come back home. To each other.   
  
FIN


End file.
